Burning House
by Elinie26
Summary: Three days before Christmas he spotted her in some dark corner of the Knockturn Alley crying silently about something. He came closer and touched her shoulder.
1. Chapter 1

_"And I've been sleepwalking_  
_Been wandering all night_  
_Trying to take what's lost and broke_  
_And make it right_  
_I've been sleepwalking_  
_Too close to the fire_  
_But it's the only place that I can hold you tight_  
_In this burning house" (c)_

_Cam - Burning House_

The flames were licking the midnight sky, free from the moon and the stars. The sky not long ago covered in thick November fog was now black as tar and hovered above the barren soil, wrecked and scarred as an old wound. The fire had been burning for long hours without any sign of dying out as if some foreign hatred and the sorrow yearning from the very soul were feeding it with everlasting power. The house was old and haunted. The oldest house in Merlin-forgotten district was standing like a sign of shame and pain of a life once lived here.

The fire was dancing merrily on the molded walls, on the peeling paint, and on the broken glass piercing into the night. He hated this house - the forever reminder of his broken past and hopeless future, but having no place to stay, he kept returning to this embodiment of pain, humiliation, and darkness. Now The Spiner's End was burning and the owner of the house was nowhere to be seen. The night gazed indifferently at the flaming fire. Flames slowly, as if trying to taste, crept up to the wooden windows, licked off the rotten wood and carefully looked inside. Both the night and the flame had long been the full owners in this house, which had seen a lot in its miserable lifetime. The only owners.

They met a couple of years after the war. She stumbled upon him in the distant corner of Knockturn Alley where she came in search of a very rare and forbidden magical plant that would help her to brew a potion to restore her parents' memories. She was looking at him determinately while he was trying to mock her, rather out of habit than really out of a sense of mockery. She stopped being his student as he stopped being a teacher. There was no need to play The Snarky Professor in front of her. He kept playing nevertheless. She did not care about his attitude, her job of a Healer in St. Mungo's taught her to deal with the worst cases of the behavior of the victims of War, so she just looked him in the eyes and asked for that rare plant she came to the Apothecary for. Several weeks later he received an owl with a letter thanking him for his help with her parents. He muttered something about insufferable former students and forgot about it. Three days before Christmas he spotted her in some dark corner of the Knockturn Alley crying silently about something. He came closer and touched her shoulder.

"Miss Granger, what are you doing here?"

"Wallowing in my misery or so it seems. Go where you've been going, Professor, I have neither will nor desire to play wits with you" she snapped in reply making him almost laugh with astonishment. She had really grown up after all.

"Get up, Miss Granger, we wouldn't want Rita Skeeter to recognize us, would we?" he asked helping her up. She muttered something rude but followed.

"I don't recollect you speaking obscenities before"

"Working with hopeless cases makes a person tough", she replied quietly.

"I take, something didn't work as intended?"

"Why do you care?"

He had never seen her so angry and so broken before. Hermione Granger was anything but broken. Determined, insanely brave, highly intelligent and forever curious. He could not recognize her now while guiding her to his Apothecary.

"So, what's gone wrong?"

"Why do you care?" she repeated stubbornly and stood in front of him, her chin in the air.

"I've seen you stubborn and determined, curios and quiet, fierce and thoughtful but I've never seen you hopeless, Miss Granger, that's why I want to know what happened"

It was she who fought for him with Wizengamot authorities and drove the Ministry crazy to get him pardoned, and Snape knew about it. It was she who stayed by his side in the middle of the Final Battle to keep him alive and conscious, and he remembered it. It was she who kept his wand safe and returned it to him on the first occasion, together with the keys of his house in Spiner's End, and he never got the chance to pay her back. Snape, after all, was a man of his word.

"I've been working with Longbottoms so far, trying to restore their memories. The potion I bought from you worked miraculously well and they seem to gain consciousness. You know, despite your hatred to Neville, he is a truly kind soul and a very brave one, mind you..."

Snape just sneered in response and added after Hermione glared at him.

"True, Miss Granger, I owe him for killing Nagini. So, if everything is turning to be okay with his parents, why are you so broken? Has something else happened in between? And, please, do not tell me to mind my own business, after all, it was I who sold you that highly effective and illegal potion"

"You never change, would you, Professor?"

"That's highly unlikely"

"I kept working with my parents. I wished to bring their memories back to them, so after testing the potion on wizards, I took the Portkey to Australia... I never managed to get to them. Call me pathetic and hopeless, but I saw that they were having a happy life with good career and a charming white-fenced house there and my mother was eight months pregnant. I returned here, I have no place in their life anymore"

"I hope, you found your solace in the arms of your supposed fiance?"

Hermione gaped at Snape, and he just shrugged in response.

"We broke up after a couple of months of muddling through and I started my studies for Healer"

"You always had a soft spot for stray animals, hadn't you, Miss Granger?"

"I doubt that you were some kind of a stray dog when I was trying to save your life at the Shack, struggling between keeping you awake and sewing your wound with rough threads."

"About that, actually... I never had a chance to ask you why you were struggling so stubbornly to save my life? I would never believe you had faith in those hero-worshipping rumors they spread after the Battle"

"I wanted everyone to have another chance and another life, free from darkness and mistakes. You may call me foolish and naive but still... Longbottoms, for example, they are extremely happy to have their son back but they lost two decades of their life, it's hard to fit back into the world that threw you away so indiffirently"

"That's the reason of your crying?"

"I've nowhere to go, Professor, no one wants me anymore. I try so hard but I keep failing. I lost my parents, I parted with Ron, I closed the doors to my childhood house because it doesn't feel like home anymore. I fight but I see no end of my fightings"

"The world itself owes you for saving it, you've never fully understood your own potential" Snape muttered with annoyance. Hermione let a small smile touch her lips.

"About finding your place, though, I've been in need of an assistant, Miss Granger, so if you consider my offer, I might have a spare room above the Apothecary..."

She blurted her agreement and Snape smirked inside his head.

He owed her for saving his life and he always paid his debts.


	2. Chapter 2

So, he was watching her. She got up at six a.m., spent a good half an hour in the shower, he noticed with annoyance that she occupied all the spare space with endless feminine items, both wizarding and Muggle ones, and after that, she swallowed down her morning cup of black coffee without cream or sugar and left for work. She returned to the Apothecary when the hands of the clock were reaching midnight, closed the door to her room and rummaged through the room till sunrise in order to get up at six a.m. and begin her boring routine again.

Not to say that Snape followed his own routine too closely. After The War had ended and his memories became the public domain, Snape chose not to show his face too openly. The rumors spread like fire, thanks to Potter, The-Boy-Who-Could-Not-Keep-His-Mouth-Shut, so Snape suddenly became the object of unnecessary attention and the hero-worship figure to everyone who listened. It appeared that the Wizarding World, especially, after the Great and completely stupid Battle (according to Snape's personal belief) turned out to be very eager for gossiping and cheap dramas. After all, he never intended to go on living.

Snape ran a palm across his face, remembering. It was the day of the Battle or, perhaps, it was the night. Sunrise and sunset mixed together in one endless hour, full of blood, screams, and horror. The most hated teacher in the whole epoch of Hogwarts, Snape thought bitterly while throwing hexes and spells, keeping his students away from Death Eaters. His inner voice, suspiciously similar to Miss Granger's wimp remarks, kept telling him that he had done everything he could to keep the children away from danger, but it no time for being optimistic and believing in a good tomorrow. So, he ran through the corridors and broken classrooms, trying to find the lost and wounded and save them, his potions-kit stayed forever with him. He ran at her suddenly, she was wandering through the Dungeons with the flock of frightened first-years, some of them were covered in blood, and Snape thought with relief that the blood was not their own, rather it once belonged to his unfortunate "friends" and now owned its appearance to Miss Granger and her excellent dueling skills.

"Miss Granger!", he snapped suddenly but despite her usual jumpy reaction to his unexpected appearance, she just sighed heavily and drew the nearest Slytherin first-year girl closer to herself.

"Sir?"

"What are you doing in the dungeons?"

"I would lie by saying that I'm hiding because staying away from the Battle was never my intention..."

"So, what is your intention, then?"

He was looking at her closely as if trying to understand the endless source of power hidden within this strong, tired and dirty young woman. She was eighteen, his mind reminded him, and she spent the hell of a time in the middle of the forest, was being tortured, nearly killed in the process, lost her wand, fooled her own parents, and now was trying to keep the children safe. Bloody, brave Gryffindors!

"My intention was to find you, sir, and to warn you", she answered bravely, looking him directly in the eyes.

"What, in Merlin's name, for?"

"The Lord is looking for you! Lucius Malfoy is running through the Battlefield looking for you and the Lord took his snake and hid in the Shack, sir, please..." she stuttered.

The children stepped closer to her.

"Please what, Miss Granger?"

"Harry watched your memories, the ones you left in the Headmaster's office, and he is very determined about sacrificing himself, he never told anything but I made two and two together. I don't care about the intentions of Dumbledore or the Order but it's enough for me to understand from Harry's words, that you wouldn't want him to die and you don't intend to sacrifice yourself for the sake of Merlin knows what crazy plan!"

"You understand nothing, you foolish girl!"

"I might not, but I saw you throwing hexes to the Death Eaters and I saw you saving us countless times, it's time to save yourself!"

"I am not a hero and never will be"

"Perhaps, but you are the one who cares, there are not so much of caring ones"

She left the children in his laboratory and ran together with him to the Shrieking Shack despite his snapping and shouting and threatening. He could hardly remember anything when the snake closed her fangs on his throat but he heard "Sectumsempra" clearly enough to understand Miss Granger's determined voice. He remembered antivenin and blood replenishing potions being poured down his throat and her never-ending desire to help everyone. So, now he was watching her. Her and her endless struggling to change at least an inch of eternal bureaucratic fiddlings and life unfortunate events. He never commented. He sat together with her on the steps, she smoked and he drank his white coffee with two sugars, to the much bemusement of dentists' daughter, the brightest witch of the decade and just an endlessly tired young woman.


	3. Chapter 3

He could not understand her useless struggling to help everyone. Probably, it was some Hero complex, or maybe she was trying to make amends with her own past in this strange and hopeless way. All doors could have been opened for her after the Battle had been won and she became the Heroine but instead, she chose this career of a Healer doomed to failure from the very beginning. Snape wanted to ask about her reasons but couldn't find enough courage or some specious pretext to do so. Since her time in his house, they never talked much, let alone share secrets.

She was a good roommate, Snape thought with half-irony: she got up at six in the morning, gulped down her coffee and left for work in order to get back around midnight, take a shower and stay hidden in her room. Solitude and silence. Had he been not craving for such a routine all these long and dangerous years? After some careful consideration from his part, Severus understood that he was not happy with his dream of solitude, now come true.

At weekends Hermione helped him with his brewing. Snape knew from his own Mastery time, that in order to become a good Healer one needed at first to complete his Mastery at Potions, so his tutelage was more than welcomed.

"Why are you doing this?", he found the courage one day while she was brewing some advanced scar-removing salve under his watchful eye.

"I always wanted to find my place in this world, Healing career came in handy or so it seems"

"I would assume that rummaging with hopeless patients of Janus Trickery Ward is not exactly Healing, Miss Granger"

"Yes, and tutoring a bunch of cheeky dunderheads through the years is not exactly teaching, is it?"

"Which brings us back to the question: why are you doing this?"

"I told you before, I've nowhere else to go", she replied, shrugging nonchalantly, "I sold the house of my parents because I couldn't stand it anymore. I broke up with Ron because he was killing me with his endless rumblings about Quidditch career and blaming everyone for not saving Fred"

"Fred Weasley is in a coma, isn't he?"

"He is. He caught some nasty curse meant for George, he saved the life of his brother but nearly lost his own. I think, Professor, that every one of us is having the survival's guilt, that's why we are not able to keep with each other anymore"

Snape nodded, adding a piece of ginger root to her salve.

"Why did you save me in The Shack?"

"I saw your house burn a couple of days before the Battle, I couldn't let this happen to you," she replied after a moment of silence, "I saw the flames licking the sky and my insides burned from unfairness. I always hated narrowminded people, preposterous in their judging"

"Preposterous? I was a monster for all these years, it would be totally incorrect of you to make me a hero, miss Granger. You haven't been to Hogwarts during your final year, so you cannot know..."

She rose her hand to make him stop and lift up her chin angrily.

"Stop this self-loathing tale of yours, if you please! I am not going to retell the real things of your loyalty to Light here, Professor. The world might be quick in its judgment for all I care, but I ask you the same question: why did you save me?"

"It would be a great loss to waste such a brain for nothing," Snape sneered in response, she giggled. The first time in weeks.

"So, what are you going to do now?"

"I am working on the restorative potion for Fred and Neville's parents. I don't want to win Ron back by bringing him his healthy brother, I just want, how did you say it? - I have a knack for stray animals, maybe I am just of them myself. I want all the lost to be found"

"Let's drink coffee, Miss Granger, and have a bit of rest, and after that, perhaps, I could help you with potions that I know about"

So, they retired to the kitchen where she started fumbling with his kettle immediately. He was watching her: jerky movements, unruly hair, forever-bitten lower lip, she was a complete nervous wreck but he understood her like never before. She was struggling with her life like he had done a million times before, she was desperately trying to solve her hero-complex and forget everything about her past.

"Maybe, we could help your parents?"

She shook her head, lighting the fire under the kettle.

"What is done is done, Professor, they are happy without me"

"Why are you so sure about it?"

"Because it's true! They never wanted anything in common with the Wizarding world and now they have their happy ending!"

"But you are their daughter, Hermione!" he reasoned, not noticing how his tongue slipped and he called her by the name for the first time.

She stared at him.

"We have our own reasons, Professor; tell me, would you restore the memories of your mother just to save her or perhaps Obliviate Lily Ewans to hide her from Voldemort? I know, it's not my business to stick my long nose into your past, but since we are having this conversation…"

"You cannot hide from your past, Hermione, no matter how hard you try, as you cannot hide your scars"

"Maybe that is the reason why I am trying to hide them. They have their happy-end, with or without me," she shrugged again, not looking at him.

"You know, I used to have such thoughts, what would happen if I managed to save Lily and her family and I understood one thing: I would still be madly in love with her, watching her from afar, envying her for the things I couldn't have and drowning myself in spying for two Masters. There should have been the third way to solve the problem," Snape mused after a couple of minutes.

"That's why I decided to break up with my past and to become a Healer. Wallowing about my parents or Ron wouldn't help me. I want to be myself, I want to follow this third way, that's why I saved you after seeing your burning house, and this is why I am not ashamed of my scars", Hermione answered, rolling up her sleeve and showing the words craved in her skin "MUDBLOOD".

Snape took her wrist.

"Don't let it determine you, it's not who you are"

"I won't, Professor"

"Call me Severus; you saved my life, after all"

She smiled at him.


	4. Chapter 4

Time flew. Sometimes, time crept slowly towards one Solstice or another, other times it rushed madly, in any case, time was not standing in a place. And neither was Snape. It did not pass his notice to realize that he developed some kind of affinity to Hermione. At first, he thought that maybe it was his craving for some human company finally fulfilled but each passing day kept proving him wrong.

They haven't grown closer, of course, but their routine became almost pleasurable and compassionate. She still left home at the wee hours in the morning, leaving a cup of coffee and a rather well-made omelet under the Stasis charm for him, and he sill waited for her to return. Snape thought himself a senile old fool when he caught a glimpse of her through the opened bathroom door one day, she noticed him, blushed and closed the poor door with a loud bang. His rather vivid and totally unexpected dreams the following night proved him that he was not old and certainly not a fool. Hermione predictably avoided Snape the morning after and kept her door closed afterward.

The next incident happened when Halloween was drawing closer and the pain of old Snape's scars worsened. Usually, he preferred to prepare his own salve, open a bottle of some fine Ogden and hide himself behind the door, closed tightly. This time it was the insufferable know-it-all who didn't let him wallow in self-loathing pity. She knocked at the door impatiently, when no answer followed, she banged the door and at last, she just used the spell to let it open. Snape was crouching at his armchair, where he accidentally had fallen from and was unable to get up.

"Severus?" she asked, running up to him. No more than a month ago he let her use his given name.

"Leave me alone, Miss Granger" he whispered, all the sneer gone from his almost inaudible voice, and clutched his once twisted knee tighter.

"Sod off, I am a Healer here and it is surely for me to decide when to leave my patient alone", Hermione muttered and knelt in front of him, waving diagnostical spells all over him. She frowned when the colorful diagram appeared before her. It was more than a couple of old-forgotten scars.

"Language, Hermione", he scolded absentmindedly. She made an annoying gesture at him.

"Why haven't you told me?"

"Told you what? That I am an old wreck with atherosclerosis and remnants of Cruciatus under my scar tissues? Uncurable ones, by the way. Why would you need to mess with me? I am not a stray animal from your endless projects!"

His words were filled with bitterness and poorly concealed pain. Hermione huffed in annoyance at his stubbornness.

"Rubbish! Cruciatus aftereffects are well cured nowadays and you would know about it if you hadn't been so proud of yourself and consulted the Healer! Now, get up, let me examine you!"

Either Snape was too tired to argue with her, or perhaps he really was in a great deal of pain, but he obeyed silently and let Hermione do her job. Stopping her hand abruptly when her fingers touched the hem of his trousers, observing that exact old scar witch caused him his suffering. A long time ago, probably during the First War, Voldemort gave him the wound after Cruciatus which scarred untreated, the wound went up from his thigh to the calf. His had been almost paralyzed after several rounds of Cruciatus and he was bitten by Cerberus at this very leg, no wonder it was giving him such a hard time now. Still, in order to be healed, he should let Hermione remove his trousers.

She reprimanded herself for foolish behavior, reminded herself that she was a Healer and it was her job and still, he was just a man and she was no virgin herself... But he nearly lost consciousness, she bit her lip when seeing him only in his boxers and he shivered under her touch. what was wrong with her? And where this sudden desire to kiss him had come from?

The next several months rushed past Hermione and Severus with neither of them noticing. He was busy with his potions due to the end of the year reaching closer, and Hermione spent day and night at St Mungo's working on the last stage of the restorative potion for Longbottoms and Ron's brother. She was a total wreck, forgetting to eat, keeping a cup of black coffee as her only breakfast with a promise to her stomach to fill it later. She even slept in her office, usually after feeling too exhausted to avoid the cauldron explosion and crawling to the nearest armchair. Truth be told, deep in her heart Hermione tried to avoid Snape as much as possible after her surprising desire for him. Surprising but not unsuspected. Hermione knew that she developed certain feelings for him during their strange living together. He helped her, listened to her endless complaining about dead cases, he even praised her success in his sarcastic way but nevertheless. Snape for the only one for taking her for who she was. The only one to know and understand her hidden pain and deep regret. she avoided him still, not sure how would he react to her outburst of feelings.

Severus hadn't seen Hermione for a week, worrying crazy about her. He remembered well from her school days what kind of wreck she turned herself into when working on an especially important project, so it was no wonder for him that she didn't show herself at home these days. He chuckled bitterly to himself: since when he started referring to their shared house as a home? She warded her office at St Mungo's and she didn't respond to his Patronus he kept sending her. This one changed right after the Battle. His well familiar Doe - the symbol of his failing and regret - turned into a shiny raven much to Severus' great satisfaction.

Winter was approaching and there was no glimpse of Hermione. Determined as never before, Severus threw on his heavy woolen cloak, put his wand in and disappeared from home. Unsolving a complicated mystery of her runic wards was a childish game for a Death Eater and a former Headmaster who warded Hogwarts himself, so he entered her office and started coughing immediately. The room was full of black smoke and the smell of melted copper cauldron. Snape rushed inside waving his wand in an attempt to clear the air. He knew about her mistake immediately: she was brewing an anti-headache potion for herself and forgot to add dried lilies which caused the explosion. He shook his head to himself.

He found her laying on the ground under the working counter. Her ankle twisted in an odd angle and a small amount of blood dripping from her temple. Snape rushed to her side, kneeling beside and taking her head to his lap. He would be a poor excuse for a Potions Master if he did not know any healing spells himself. Adjusting her head carefully, he began waving his wand in a complicated pattern while chanting "Vulnera Sanentur" - the spell of his own invention.

"Foolish, foolish girl, you made me so worried!" he muttered to himself.


	5. Chapter 5

Almost a week passed since that unfortunate event in Hermione's working laboratory and neither Snape nor she acted as if the nearly disastrous incident deserved their attention. She woke up laying halfway in his lap, her eyes were red-rimmed from the heavy black smoke, her breath caught in her throat from the inability to breathe properly, her head spinning. She was in pain and at the same time, she felt safe as never before. Snape's concerned gaze was following her eye movement but he commented nothing. Stubborn and uncertain as ever. Hermione stirred and tried to get up but his hands, steady and surprisingly gentle, kept her from getting to her feet.

"How are you feeling, Miss Granger?"

She winced, trying to turn her head, but the flash of sharp pain gave her a dizzy sensation and sent red sparks dancing before her closed eyelids.

"Like shit, to tell you the truth", she muttered, coughing and still trying to reach from a horizontal position.

"Thank you for being honest, I always admired your straightforwardness and your enormous stupidity coming together with a brilliant brain", Snape snapped at her harshly. She bit her lip.

"If this is your way to play a Matron here, I hasten to assure you, that this is not the time nor the opportunity, besides, I don't need a babysitter, so you'd better let me up and leave me alone!"

Even in her faint whisper, she sounded sharply to him. Severus didn't comment, he just sighed at her annoying behavior and as gentle as possible lifted her and sat her on the small sofa. She stared at him with her swollen red eyes and rubbed her temples tiredly.

"You should sleep, you know, besides, it is no good spending here this amount of time you are spending here..." Snape started but Hermione interrupted him, waving her hand irritatingly.

"I told you before, I am perfectly fine and the state of my health and my sleeping habits are of no concern to you, Mister Snape!" she snapped in response, waving her hands for a better effect. Snape stared back at her.

"I thought, we were on first-name terms already, but certainly I was mistaken, Miss Granger"

"You the most probably are mistaken! Can you imagine, can you just try to depict what I've been through all of these years? You were laying on that dirty floor in the Shack and I was standing there, helpless, watching life leaving through your open wound, light fading from your eyes... And there was the war raging around us but all I could think at that moment was how to chase Death away! Away from you. I was no Healer, sure, but the number of books I read during my studies could make me anyone if I tried hard enough. I couldn't let you die. It was no crush, I assure you, it was the burning sensation of unfairness. Life was unfair in general like you always used to say, but still. I had to try. I wanted to scream helplessly, but instead, I rushed to your side, drew my wand and started casting, chanting and healing. I wanted to save at least one soul because I remember Madam Pomfrey saying: "You can not change the world, Hermione, but you can change the life of one soul". I chose yours. I finished my incantations and noticed that you started breathing, so I rushed from the Shack in search of Madam Pomfrey and what I found when I got back? You disappeared! You just found your wand and crawled far away from that place! And you know what? I didn't blame you at that time. I understood your reasons and your desire to be away from the world. Years passed with no glimpse of you, you didn't answer any of my letters and my Patronus always dissolved into nothingness when I tried to send you a message. What I found next? I heard that someone burned your house, the only home you'd got left, and after what? After Harry and I fought so desperately with the Ministry to convince them of your innocence and get you pardoned! Someone just went and burned your home!"

"I wouldn't call that fleapit in Spinner's End a "home", Miss Granger" Snape managed to intervene with his five sickles into her angry speech, but Hermione didn't follow his comment. She was witnessing it again: the night, the house and the fire.

_The flames were licking the midnight sky, free from the moon and the stars. The sky not long ago covered in thick November fog was now black as tar and hovered above the barren soil, wrecked and scarred as an old wound. The fire had been burning for long hours without any sign of dying out as if some foreign hatred and the sorrow yearning from the very soul were feeding it with everlasting power. The house was old and haunted. The oldest house in Merlin-forgotten district was standing like a sign of shame and pain of a life once lived here._

_The fire was dancing merrily on the molded walls, on the peeling paint, and the broken glass piercing into the night. He hated this house - the forever reminder of his broken past and hopeless future, but having no place to stay, he kept returning to this embodiment of pain, humiliation, and darkness. Now The Spiner's End was burning and the owner of the house was nowhere to be seen. The night gazed indifferently at the flaming fire. Flames slowly, as if trying to taste, crept up to the wooden windows, licked off the rotten wood and carefully looked inside. Both the night and the flame had long been the full owners in this house, which had seen a lot in its miserable lifetime. The only owners._

She blinked, suddenly awakening from her bitter imagination, and continued with her accusative speech.

"I thought that they killed you..." Hermione whispered, Snape shook his head and tried to move closer but her raised hand stopped his movements. "There were too many of those who wanted you dead. I was wandering the ashes left of your home, trying to catch a single trace of your magic, and still, I understood your reasons to hide somewhere away. I couldn't believe you dead or hopeless. You wanted to live your life and be free. You know, but still, something inside of me burned with that house that unfortunate night. I always wanted to hear at least a word of your approval of my actions, I didn't want your praise, I just wished you noticed me and my actions. So, I became a Healer. I continued my fighting against helpless causes. I helped so many people during the way! Neither my friends nor you noticed that... And suddenly I met you in Knockturn Alley that dreadful night when I failed my patient, lost my potion and remained homeless. You found me and took me to your house so that in the end to keep ignoring and now - lecturing me! Why did you save me that night in the Alley?"

Snape sighed bitterly and muttered:

"I thought we were friends..."

"Yes, we might have been, instead you keep dashing away from me as if I am a living embodiment of Dark Lord himself and you are afraid to even call me by my first name, _Severus_!"

He jumped feeling as if slapped him and reached for her. She shook her head angrily.

"Go away, Severus! Leave me alone! I don't want your pity or your loathing, or your lectures! Just... leave me be! I'll get my things from your house and disappear from your life forever, rest assured!"

Snape touched her cheek with a back of his hand hesitantly, she closed her eyes for a second leaning to his touch. Her lips trembling from poorly concealed sobs but she snapped her eyes open, piercing right into his soul.

"Go away, please, I cannot go on like this, Severus, go away"

"Hermione..." he whispered back before dissolving from her view.


	6. Chapter 6

Heavy rain was raging endlessly this dark and damp night. The outside was a literal embodiment of the Great Flood and the world was drowning and drowning and drowning in this infinite greyness and dampness and cold. He always thought he liked cold, having spent almost half of his life in the dungeons of Hogwarts, Severus got used to a constant feeling of icy air creeping on his skin and reaching inside his bones. He stopped caring long ago.

His life was full of danger and vigilance, he learned what it meant - to live on the alert, to always be prepared to fight rather than to flee, no matter what - he had never been a coward and preferred to die on the battlefield than to hide in some discreet corner, so he didn't care for his comfort anymore.

Until that significant night at the Shack. He remembered pain, his screams of agony, piercing white light burning his eyelids, his fading consciousness and then... He remembered warmth. He sort of hoped, if his damned life would allow him so, to see Lily in the Afterlife and to beg for forgiveness for his sins, but surely he had never been this lucky and would never ever be. So, first Severus felt only cold and agonizing pain, and suddenly there was warmth and fading light, probably coming from the tip of someone's wand. He felt calm, he didn't feel the pain anymore. Minutes passed, his bleeding stopped and the unmistakable chanting of the spell of his own creation – Vulnera Sanentur – followed. He knew of only one Healer capable to perform such complicated magic and he was sure – that Healer wasn't Madame Pomfrey.

The main difficulty in casting Vulnera Sanentur laid in the intention of the Healer. Unlike other spells, the one of Snape's creation was based on the true intention of giving magical force to another human being. Healing magic, in general, was performed using the sheer power of Light and good intentions while Vulnera Sanentur drew its strength from the aura of the Healer and only powerful witches or wizards could use such a vulnerable source of power. If the incantation went wrong, the Healer could drain his own magical reserve of power.

Hermione Granger was not an ordinary witch and her passion for perfectionism and her immense wish to help everyone in need always ruled her life and help to solve the most complicated situations.

Snape remembered having regained consciousness on the damp floor of the Shack, his head laying on the lap of one remarkable witch, whose enormous babbling and endless questions used to drive him crazy, and warmth, the airy blanket of the warmth enveloping him. He remembered her voice singing his own melody of magic. Snape wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and dissolve in that heavenly the wonderful feeling of warmth but something in her voice made him open his eyes and observe her closely.

Hermione looked terribly. Her once beautiful hair was now hanging in loose and greasy threads on both sides of her face, her skin was unhealthy pale, her eyes lost their spark and she was the literal embodiment of war and danger of the last year. Snape croaked trying to regain his broken voice and whispered to her.

"Leave me alone, Miss Granger, you have the Battle to fight and people to save"

She shook her head vigorously and continued her chanting. It didn't take a strong wizard to notice that her aura was draining drop by drop with each sang word but she continued her healing nonetheless. Snape grabbed her by the hand.

"Leave me, Hermione, I am to die anyway, and use your power on more grateful objects, you are losing your resource for nothing"

Hermione looked him right into the eyes and muttered through her clenched teeth:

"I believe that you cannot save the whole of mankind but it is in your power to save one soul. I chose yours!"

And now Snape remembered her words echoing painfully through his hollow thoughts. He stopped questioning her reasons for saving him a long time ago, attributing them to her soft spot for those in need, but each passing day spent in her company taught him that there was more behind her altruistic inclinations, far-far more than he ever ceased to admit.

At first, she was the one to help him one unfortunate night after Lord's insane flash of rage which left Snape bleeding and panting on the marble floor of teacher's bathroom. He was unable to reach his quarters and Hermione, fortunately, found him in the middle of the night during one of her Head Girl's patrol shifts. She didn't question him, she just helped and healed, as clumsy as one six-year student can, but he was grateful. She started her Advanced Healing after that. The second time, it was Snape who warned her about the grave danger her parents were in and he vaguely suggested Memory Charm to her. He felt guilty about it now, but Hermione always reassured him that misfortune with her relations with her parents was her fault and her only.

And lastly, she saved his life almost losing her magic in the process.

"You don't even want to call me by my given name, Severus!"

Her parting remark kept burning in Severus' thoughts and anger for himself washed over him. Oh, he wanted to call her by her name! He wanted nothing more than to do so but he was leading a losing battle with his desire and his voice of reason. Yes, she was almost twenty years his junior, she was his former student, she saved his life almost losing her own in process and he was in her debt. He felt warmth with her. He wanted to smile in her presence for the first time since his friendship with Lily. He forgot about his past sins with her and he wanted to keep their endless conversations forever.

Hermione took in the habit to check on him every now and then. At first, he scolded her for the unnecessary babysitting, but soon he realized that she noticed things no one ever did. For example, Hermione always left a cup of tea for him during his headache attacks or left the door of her room slightly ajar in case he would see another nightmare. She knew, he hated himself at those nights, but she never commented or offered her help, she just descended the stairs, entered the kitchen and sat quietly beside him till the dawn broke. Insufferable-know-it-all seemed to finally lose her habit of endless babbling, especially with people like Snape. She stayed beside him. And he, longing for human warmth for all these years, was simply grateful.

"I thought you were dead when I saw your burning home!" he remembered her crying. "I thought I lost you forever, even after saving your life"

The thought struck him like a lightning: not only he craved for human warmth, she did also. She stopped trying to gain the unnecessary approval of the others, she just wanted to belong somewhere where her efforts would be cherished or at least noticed. Hermione chose the wrong person to ask for recognition but Snape was the man of his word, no matter his debt to her.

Snape wasn't sure of his feelings, for he always had difficulties expressing emotions, but he couldn't just let her go. Consequences be damned!

He knew that he would find her on the ashes of his burning house, so he grabbed his traveling cloak, pocketed his wand and left his house he so much wanted to call "the home".


	7. Chapter 7

Hermione sat in her office, cradling a cup of strong black coffee in her palms. Her life turned into a total and irreversible mess and she even had not noticed how. Yeah, she assumed, she had been living in a mess for all these years, no wonder it finally came to choke her, to swallow her full, to leave her living in the misery. She did not want to live in the misery, but she had no place to return to, to get a glimpse of comfort, to feel a bit of human warmth, she had no home anymore.

Hermione shook her head, let out a heavy sigh, and sipped from her cup once again. The bitter taste on her tongue was a perfect illustration of the sensations of her life. And who was to blame for this? Her inner voice was whispering in her head in an annoyingly Snape-like manner and Hermione stilled a sob. She refused to cry over her own mistakes. He probably thought her a complete fool now, so much for the brightest witch of her age. Rather a love-struck fool. She pushed her cup away angrily as if it personally offended her. Hermione did not know what to do next. For the first time in her life, she was lost. She was standing on the crossroads and the road was hidden in a blurry moonless night.

She shamefully admitted to herself that she forgot to take her things from Snape's house. Not that she had a place to store them, anyway, but still. Hermione did not know how to look him in the eyes. She was afraid of seeing the scorn in his eyes. So, she did not make better use of herself rather than sitting in her dimly lit office and drinking cold and bitter coffee from a chipped cup. Hermione was not sure of her feelings towards her former Potions Professor. Was it a school crush? Was it just her usual Healer's empathy to the one in need? Was it gratitude? Was it loneliness?

Hermione shuddered. Loneliness was her long-term companion. Her only true friend. Loneliness listened to her shameful lamenting during cold winter nights when ghosts from the past came to visit. Loneliness sat with her when another "prince charming" turned out to be not so charming and definitely no prince. Loneliness clawed at her heart, kissed her lips with a cold dementor-like kiss, and took away all the brightness from her life. Not that she ever had much brightness, anyway.

So, that's it, she was lonely. She craved for human contact, for a simple touch, for a stimulating conversation, for a cup of tea during midnight hours. For someone to finally understand her, to accept her flaws without mocking. Hermione smiled: she rather liked Snape's unique mocking ability, making his comments rather affectionate once you learned how to accept them properly. Now, she officially could consider herself a love-sick puppy for developing a crush on her former Professor. She felt warm with him, the rest could go hang itself.

Hermione refilled her cup with another awful brew not deserving to bear a noble name of black coffee and returned to her chair. She did not want to start her life over again, she was a champion of "starting from zero points". She only wished for someone to care for her. Her sleepless night was showing its cruel side-effects: red-rimmed eyes, blotchy face, burning headache, and a bitter taste on her tongue. Her stupid quarrel with Snape still echoed in her mind, but she smiled satisfactorily: she succeeded, her restorative potion proved to be effective, Fred came into consciousness and the Longbottoms started showing the first signs of awareness in twenty years. She could help them, she was sure of it now, she would bring Neville his parents! The only thing keeping her from celebrating was that ashy feeling in her heart: she had no one to share this news with anymore. Of course, she would write to Harry, she had already sent her Patronus to Ron and the entire Weasley clan would be here by the afternoon to greet Fred, but... It was not the same. It was not how she imagined it to be.

Hermione pushed her chair aside and it creaked on the floor. She stood abruptly and walked to the coat-rack with determination: she had a place to go, if only it was just a faint echo of what could have been. She put on her traveling cloak, warded her office, and apparated to the ashes that once were Snape's house.

Snape wandered on the ashen grounds. He knew their secret, he after all was the one who created the trick. Now he only needed to wait. She would be there, she always carried a strange sense of sentimentality towards this place. With a loud crack, Hermione appeared not so far from him. He frowned in dissatisfaction: she was completely exhausted, other ways she would not be appariting so noisily.

"You know, my potion proved to be effective", she whispered absent-mindedly, coming closer to him.

"I never doubted your abilities, Hermione", he answered softly, daring to reach for her hand.

"Liar".

"I beg to disagree. The fact that I never praised you openly didn't mean I never admitted your brightness, at least to myself".

"I do not know what it is with me and this place", she shrugged and stepped into his embrace.

"I do, Hermione. Ever since my blood dropped onto your hands, the warding of this place connected the house to you. It never burned, you know, it was just a well-made illusion. Every time someone tried to break through my wards, the house seemed to burn and alerted me of the intruders, that's why you watched it burn two times, at the very least. A couple of years ago I came back here, made a couple of renovations, got rid of the things from my past, and planted a herbal garden around. I didn't know what use to make of this place, but I decided that a bit of waiting wouldn't kill. So... Watch carefully now".

Snape gripped his wand in one hand and Hermione's palm in the other and made a few swift movements. Layer by layer a shimmering magic replaced the illusion and revealed his house. It was white-washed, had a red roof, a yellow fence, a neatly-mowed lawn, and a lot of herbs. Hermione smiled at him.

"We could work at the apothecary together at daytime, you know..." Snape began almost hesitantly. She tugged him by the hand.

"Will you help me with my next potion-project?"

"Only if you let me".

"Let's go home, Severus".

He smiled back at her and pulled her closer, capturing her lips in a searing kiss, filled with longing, desire, and warmth.

"Let's go home, Hermione. Let's go home".

And they walked inside, hand in hand, to have their own happily ever after on the ashes of the house that never got burned.

The End.


End file.
